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3.58 AVERAGE
3.58 AVERAGE
I'm not quite sure what to make of The DUFF. On one hand, it is an amazingly authentic YA book. On the other hand, I spent most of the story annoyed at Bianca and frustrated by the plot.
Bianca comes off as jaded, sarcastic, cynical. She judgmental of the world and self-absorbed. I couldn't stand the negativity. Right at the start of the book, Bianca is at a teen club watching from the sidelines and she jumps right in to judging people who were enjoying themselves dancing. Even her actions toward Wesley seem sort of extreme. When she kisses him in the beginning, she stopped herself and proceed to yell at and hit him. Violent much? Even her treatment of her friends, who were amazingly loyal and awesome, grated on my nerves. And her decision to sleep with Welsey… argh, I wanted to shake her. How was this empowering to women - sleeping with the guy that called you the ugly friend. It's a horrible lesson on self-esteem.
But, I was ranting to my friend about this character and she pointed out that the character is acting like a teenager. And she was right - Bianca portrays a typical teenager that many people can relate to. As a teenager, when haven't we made stupid decisions or fallen for the bad boy. Okay, so maybe I can't relate to the bad boy thing, but I made plenty of dumb decisions as a teen. Nothing as serious as sleeping with a boy, but still dumb choices. And I think that what's appealing about this book is that Bianca is not a flawless heroine and that she is easily relatable. When haven't we compared ourselves to our friends and felt inadequate. I know that sometimes I still feel like the DUFF when I'm with my friends. But as this novel points out, everyone feels like the DUFF sometimes.
I had some problems with the plotting. There were some issues, like Bianca's father battle with alcohol, that I felt she took shortcuts with. But overall, I didn't regret reading this book. I enjoyed the character development and Bianca improved in the end.
Bianca comes off as jaded, sarcastic, cynical. She judgmental of the world and self-absorbed. I couldn't stand the negativity. Right at the start of the book, Bianca is at a teen club watching from the sidelines and she jumps right in to judging people who were enjoying themselves dancing. Even her actions toward Wesley seem sort of extreme. When she kisses him in the beginning, she stopped herself and proceed to yell at and hit him. Violent much? Even her treatment of her friends, who were amazingly loyal and awesome, grated on my nerves. And her decision to sleep with Welsey… argh, I wanted to shake her. How was this empowering to women - sleeping with the guy that called you the ugly friend. It's a horrible lesson on self-esteem.
But, I was ranting to my friend about this character and she pointed out that the character is acting like a teenager. And she was right - Bianca portrays a typical teenager that many people can relate to. As a teenager, when haven't we made stupid decisions or fallen for the bad boy. Okay, so maybe I can't relate to the bad boy thing, but I made plenty of dumb decisions as a teen. Nothing as serious as sleeping with a boy, but still dumb choices. And I think that what's appealing about this book is that Bianca is not a flawless heroine and that she is easily relatable. When haven't we compared ourselves to our friends and felt inadequate. I know that sometimes I still feel like the DUFF when I'm with my friends. But as this novel points out, everyone feels like the DUFF sometimes.
I had some problems with the plotting. There were some issues, like Bianca's father battle with alcohol, that I felt she took shortcuts with. But overall, I didn't regret reading this book. I enjoyed the character development and Bianca improved in the end.
OMG I LOVED this book ! The love story reminded me of my love stories when I was a teenager, and it felt SO good ! Bianca reminded me so many times of Diara (the TV show on MTV in the 90's), she is very cynical and hilarious, but with less self-esteem than Diara. She made me laugh out loud so many times, I really enjoyed this book a lot. Great job, Kody Keplinger, I couldn't put it down ! The love story was so sweet...
First time that I've read a book in one day for a very long time. Quick, cheesy, breezy read. I'll have to watch the movie now to see how it compares.
It seems like everyone who reads YA has read this book so I must admit, I was pretty ashamed about the fact that I hadn’t read it. So with the movie coming out in the UK soon, I thought I’d finally get around to it and I must admit I was slightly disappointed. I still enjoyed it and I think it was a good read but I did find it to be slightly overhyped.
The book as a whole was good. I loved the moral of the story and I felt like it had a really good message.It dealt really well with some serious subjects and I loved that. I also really enjoyed the cast of characters. Bianca was your typical cynical high school student who hates everything that most high school students do yet I still liked reading from her perspective. I loved her friends Casey and Jessica because they contrasted Bianca perfectly and provided a nice balance. I also really loved Wesley as a character and not just because I kept picturing him as Robbie Amell who is playing him in the film adaptation. I felt like her perfectly embodied the typical male high school student. Yes he was a cliche, but who doesn’t enjoy a cliche once in a while? I actually would have liked to have seen more of him so that I could get to know him a little bit more but still, he was probably my favourite part of the novel.
Read more of my review at: https://thereadingfangirl.wordpress.com/2015/03/28/the-duff-by-kody-keplinger/
The book as a whole was good. I loved the moral of the story and I felt like it had a really good message.It dealt really well with some serious subjects and I loved that. I also really enjoyed the cast of characters. Bianca was your typical cynical high school student who hates everything that most high school students do yet I still liked reading from her perspective. I loved her friends Casey and Jessica because they contrasted Bianca perfectly and provided a nice balance. I also really loved Wesley as a character and not just because I kept picturing him as Robbie Amell who is playing him in the film adaptation. I felt like her perfectly embodied the typical male high school student. Yes he was a cliche, but who doesn’t enjoy a cliche once in a while? I actually would have liked to have seen more of him so that I could get to know him a little bit more but still, he was probably my favourite part of the novel.
Read more of my review at: https://thereadingfangirl.wordpress.com/2015/03/28/the-duff-by-kody-keplinger/
This was my alternative to a cheesy Netflix movie on a Saturday afternoon, and it fulfilled my expectations of picking up a light and entertaining read. And while it feels like the author is trying to touch upon some more sensitive topic, which is nice to see in a book aimed at teen girls, it is somewhat lost, issues left unfinished or resolved too effortlessly. So not exactly food for though material, but nice.
I have watched the movie about a hundred times. No exaggeration. It's just a silly feel-good thing. But the book goes deeper, and it's a lot different than the movie. Which is great. I enjoyed the book immensely.
I have to admit that I was honestly disappointed with this book after watching the film. The book and the film have completely different storylines and they even go so far as to eliminate and add characters to the movie, which isn't necessarily a problem that they're so different if I had enjoyed the book more.
I found Bianca a hard character to relate to, even though, like Bianca, I had my parents split up when I was in high school and my Dad was an alcoholic, though not admittedly so, and while I am happy with who I am today, I think that every teenager struggles to find themselves so I thought I'd relate more to the whole "DUFF" concept. However, the way Bianca handles the situations with her parents, especially her father's drinking problem (which causes him to become abusive) was completely irrational. She knew all her life that her father was a recovering alcoholic and yet when she found out her father had started drinking she acts completely ignorant about the whole thing, as if it's no big deal and it was just a one time thing that he'll get over instead of a disease that needs to be treated. Next, the "DUFF" issue. Bianca is constantly going on about how she doesn't really give a shit about how people see her, when honestly, I'd say that 98% of her inner dialogue is about just that: stressing about other's opinions of her being a DUFF. She obsessed over it throughout the whole book, which I guess I should have expected since that's the title and all, but it got cumbersome to read after a while.
Bianca's friends are totally unrealistic and completely obsessed with her. Jessica is completely ditzy all the time, nice and innocent as she's made out to be, it doesn't excuse the fact that she pretty much acts like a child who doesn't really know anything until maybe the last four chapters of the book, if even then. And Casey, oh my god, has to be oblivious if she hasn't figured shit out over halfway through the book, especially since she knows exactly when Bianca is lying (which is apparently every time she says "I'm fine") and Bianca admits several times that she is HORRIBLE at lying and she knows Casey can see through her, blah, blah, blah. Whatever. And then when she finally finds out the truth about Wesley she acts like a jealous ex or something and even though Bianca is clearly unhappy with Toby Tucker, so much so that ditzy, oblivious, gullible Jessica noticed, Casey continues to advocate for the couple to stay together. For a person who is supposedly always coming to the rescue of people, it's awfully selfish of her to keep pushing her best friend onto a guy that's she's completely played out with just because she's jealous that if she was with someone she really liked that she wouldn't hang out with her again. She should want her to be happy, shouldn't she?
Then there's Bianca, who is honestly not that likable of a character. I got so sick of her pessimistic, selfish, bitchy personality and her obsessing over Wesley and the DUFF that I kinda wanted to throw the book across the room. I kept reading in the hopes that it would get better but it didn't really improve much and her character only REALLY changed in the final two chapters.
All in all it wasn't a terrible read, but I'll never get my day back, and now I understand why they changed the storyline so much for the film, including Bianca's personality which becomes witty, to counteract the bitchy and so forth.
I found Bianca a hard character to relate to, even though, like Bianca, I had my parents split up when I was in high school and my Dad was an alcoholic, though not admittedly so, and while I am happy with who I am today, I think that every teenager struggles to find themselves so I thought I'd relate more to the whole "DUFF" concept. However, the way Bianca handles the situations with her parents, especially her father's drinking problem (which causes him to become abusive) was completely irrational. She knew all her life that her father was a recovering alcoholic and yet when she found out her father had started drinking she acts completely ignorant about the whole thing, as if it's no big deal and it was just a one time thing that he'll get over instead of a disease that needs to be treated. Next, the "DUFF" issue. Bianca is constantly going on about how she doesn't really give a shit about how people see her, when honestly, I'd say that 98% of her inner dialogue is about just that: stressing about other's opinions of her being a DUFF. She obsessed over it throughout the whole book, which I guess I should have expected since that's the title and all, but it got cumbersome to read after a while.
Bianca's friends are totally unrealistic and completely obsessed with her. Jessica is completely ditzy all the time, nice and innocent as she's made out to be, it doesn't excuse the fact that she pretty much acts like a child who doesn't really know anything until maybe the last four chapters of the book, if even then. And Casey, oh my god, has to be oblivious if she hasn't figured shit out over halfway through the book, especially since she knows exactly when Bianca is lying (which is apparently every time she says "I'm fine") and Bianca admits several times that she is HORRIBLE at lying and she knows Casey can see through her, blah, blah, blah. Whatever. And then when she finally finds out the truth about Wesley she acts like a jealous ex or something and even though Bianca is clearly unhappy with Toby Tucker, so much so that ditzy, oblivious, gullible Jessica noticed, Casey continues to advocate for the couple to stay together. For a person who is supposedly always coming to the rescue of people, it's awfully selfish of her to keep pushing her best friend onto a guy that's she's completely played out with just because she's jealous that if she was with someone she really liked that she wouldn't hang out with her again. She should want her to be happy, shouldn't she?
Then there's Bianca, who is honestly not that likable of a character. I got so sick of her pessimistic, selfish, bitchy personality and her obsessing over Wesley and the DUFF that I kinda wanted to throw the book across the room. I kept reading in the hopes that it would get better but it didn't really improve much and her character only REALLY changed in the final two chapters.
All in all it wasn't a terrible read, but I'll never get my day back, and now I understand why they changed the storyline so much for the film, including Bianca's personality which becomes witty, to counteract the bitchy and so forth.
I watched the movie before reading the book. As with most things the book was better!
